CREW files amicus briefs on behalf of former secretaries of state on election EO

CREW filed amicus briefs on behalf of a bipartisan group of former secretaries of state in two cases challenging President Trump’s executive order attempting to exert federal control over elections. On June 13, California, Nevada, and seventeen other states were granted a preliminary injunction by a Massachusetts federal court, which cited the secretaries’ brief several times, including quoting in agreement the secretaries’ argument that “[a]llowing the President to change election rules and procedures on [his] whim whenever [he] see[s] fit, without any input from election administrators charged with executing those rules and without the checks and balances provided by Congress, would be equivalent to dropping an anvil onto the carefully balanced scales of justice.”

The amicus brief explains that the Constitution establishes that states play an irreplaceable and primary role in election regulation and administration—and that the president has no standalone power to regulate and administer elections. Therefore, Trump’s executive order asserting presidential authority over elections violates the key democratic principle of the separation of powers laid out in the Constitution.

Trump’s executive order oversteps his authority by ordering the Election Assistance Commission to unilaterally add new requirements to the federal voter registration form, taking federal control over some voter roll list maintenance, requiring the review and potential decertification of certain voting systems and prohibiting states from processing absentee and mail-in ballots received after Election Day. 

As the brief states: “Although Amici may not always have agreed about what constitute the best election policies, Amici nonetheless share a common commitment to ensuring that elections are free and fair, and Amici are unified in their understanding of states’ pivotal role in enacting and executing election laws, as set forth in the U.S. Constitution.”